58 FAMILY I. FORFICULIDJE. THE EARWIGS. 



prepared and issued by the U. S. Bureau of Entomology. In this 

 it is stated that the sexes mate in late autumn, the male dying 

 soon after. The female soon deposits 50 to 90 eggs in the ground 

 and then hibernates near them at a depth of two to eight inches, 

 those Avhich survive emerging in the spring to attend the larvae 

 in their early stages. The young appear about May 5th, and, pass- 

 ing through four larval stages, become adults by the middle of 

 July. As larva? they feed on the tender green shoots of clover, 

 grass, lima beans and on the buds and petals of dahlias, roses 

 and other cultivated plants. The adults feed largely on the sta- 

 mens and petals of flowers, doing immense damage where present 

 in such numbers as at Newport, where Jones says that on one 

 estate, when the porch awnings were let down each morning, over 

 a quart of the earwigs dropped out and were swept up and 

 burned, and that 300 specimens were seen by him at one time in 

 one of the servants' halls. By 1916 the colony had spread over 

 ten square miles of territory. As remedies poison baits of stale 

 bread and Paris green proved very effective in early spring, and 

 poison and contact sprays later in the season. 



In my former work (1903, 171) I recorded this earwig, on the 

 authority of Rehn (1903, 125), as having been taken at Lafayette, 

 Ind., by the late F. M. Webster. Caudell (1907a, 170), has shown 

 that the specimens so recorded were taken by Webster in Tas- 

 mania. Burr (1897, 16) states that in England auricularia is well 

 known to every one and is quite ubiquitous, but its home seems to 

 be under bark of trees, planks, stones, on flowers, fruit, etc. Lat- 

 reille (1831, 6) says that the two sexes of this species when in 

 coitn, are united end to end, a statement not substantiated by any 

 other author. 



Aside from the species above considered but one other earwig 

 has been recorded from the eastern United States. This was an 

 adventive example of Spundex pcrcheroni (Guer. & Perch.), a Bra- 

 zilian species, taken in Massachusetts, and described by Scudder 

 (1862, 415) as Spotif/opliora bipunctata. It was recorded by him 

 (1900, 6) as Forficiihi pcrclicroni (ruer.-Perch., and by Caudell 

 (1913, 599) as P sails pcrcheroni. The three extralimital species 

 from North America not included in this work are: (1). Hpong- 

 orostox (ipiccdcutatiis (Caudell), a native species known only 

 from Arizona; (2). Clielisorlicx morio (Fabr.), a tropical adven- 

 tive form now established at Menlo Park, California, and (3). 

 Doru Uncurc ( Esch.), a Mexican and South American form which 

 occurs also in Texas. Arizona and Southern California. 



